


To Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

by SkyLeaf



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/F, Loneliness, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Twilight Princess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27123251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyLeaf/pseuds/SkyLeaf
Summary: With a wall separating her from a world she had yet to experience, Zelda grieved over the loss of her first friend.
Relationships: Midna/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Kudos: 8





	To Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the "chains" prompt of Midzel Week 2020 - and, yes, the title is from Hamlet, because I really like the soliloquy and I felt like the general atmosphere of it fit this fanfic :)

There were no cracks left in the wall.

Deep down, Zelda had known that before she had even gone to courtyard, having observed the construction process from her balcony. They would not leave even the tiniest imperfection in the wall, just as the tree next to her had been cut down, probably under Auru’s orders, to keep her from getting the idea of climbing over it to see if they had really ruined the connection with the other realm. She had been about to turn around the corner, on her way to yet another geography lesson, using the few minutes she had that were not entirely planned out for her to dry her tears, when she had heard the guards discuss how it was a shame that such an old tree had to be cut down to keep the princess from doing something she would regret later on.

Was only then that Zelda even considered that that had been an option to her, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands as she realised that for two days, she had had the option of seeing for herself if Auru had really meant it when he had ordered the connection between her and her friend to be severed. In the end, she had ended up not going to her lesson at all. It didn’t matter, not when they already knew that she was no longer afraid of the consequences, not when Zelda knew that everyone within the castle would know where the princess had gone once she failed to show up to her lesson.

As she knelt down in front of the wall, the memory of the time her tutor had tried to explain to her just why Hyrule Castle had once been an architectural marvel, something about the structure of the walls and pillars having been a breakthrough, fresh in her mind, there had still been a little of the hope that perhaps, if she just prayed hard enough ,she would find that there was still a passageway for her through the wall, perhaps left for her by fate or by a guard who had silently taken her side over Auru’s, left, but the longer she spent out in the courtyard, running her hand over the bricks as she searched for even the faintest trace of an irregularity in the construction, a sign of where she might be able to force her way through, the more that hope faded, until she was left with nothing at all, staring at the wall in front of her.

That was how Auru found her, sitting with her back against the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest as she cried into her arms.

Crouching down on the ground, he looked towards her, and Zelda could see how his gaze lingered at the mud beneath her. At least he did not mention the ruined dress or the fact that they both knew that her father must have noticed her disappearance by now. Instead, he just let out a sigh. “I knew that I would find you out here, Your Highness.”

“I promised that I would meet her here.” Zelda stifled a sob, already hearing that she did not succeed. “We had promised each other that we would share our greatest treasure with one another. She must be wondering where I am, why I did not come like I had promised.”

She had meant to say more, had meant to tell Auru that she would never forgive him for what he had done, but the words died in her throat, the tears taking their place instead as she looked back over her shoulder, only to find herself staring at the wall’s smooth surface. They had even predicted that her first thought would be to climb over it, going to great lengths to ensure that there were no places for her to be able to grab onto, the mortar carefully smoothened out to create a flat surface.

“You have told me that, princess, and trust me when I say that the last thing I want is for you to have a reason to cry. But it was for your own good. Sooner or later, the girl you were talking to—she would have betrayed you, used you to try to get a way to attack the king. You cannot trust her.”

“I can,” Zelda repeated, already knowing that they were about to enter the circular argument that had come to fill most of her days after they had discovered her sitting in front of the well, Auru continuing to insist that the hours she had spent looking down at the reflection in the water that showed the other world had never meant anything to the other girl, that the friendship had existed only in Zelda’s head, and Zelda shaking her head every time he would repeat that argument, finding comfort and faith in the memory of the girl whose name she had not thought to ask for until it was too late, “she was my best friend; she knew me better than anyone within this castle, better than you could ever hope to!” the last word became a yell, Zelda finally looking up at Auru, trying to force herself to let the anger shine through the tears.

She was not certain what she had hoped for, if she had thought that her little display of emotion would be enough to push Auru to finally show more than just the condescending smile that accompanied every last one of his attempts at convincing her that it was for her own good, or if the yell had been nothing but the result of the hours she had spent outside in the cold with only her thin gown to protect her from the impending winter.

But Auru did not flinch, the little tug at the corners of his mouth and the crease between his eyebrows that so clearly told her that what he was seeing was a child who would one day come to understand why he had acted the way he had never fading. “You say that now, but I assure you that when you get older, you will understand that there are sometimes things we do not want to do that must be done for the good of the country, sacrifices we do not want to bring that are expected from the regent.” he paused, still looking at her.

Zelda knew that before, before he had found her in front of the well and ordered it to be drained and walled off, that would have been the moment where he had smiled at her and she would have moved closer towards him, accepting the hug without a word as he tried to cheer her up after one of her tutors had criticised her for her posture, her pronunciation, or her way of writing. But now, she remained where she was, looking at Auru as she refused to move a muscle.

Finally, he seemed to understand the message she was trying to convey through her frown and let out a sigh. “I know what you are thinking about me right now. You think that I am a monster who has just ripped your only friend away from you. And you are free to think that; there is nothing I can do to keep you from hating me, from wishing that I would disappear from your life and never return again.” Zelda felt how he looked towards her, waiting for a reaction. Making sure to hide the way she flinched a little as he brought up the possibility of him vanishing, not wanting him to see how that had been a fear that had been a common reoccurrence in her nightmares before the well and the wall behind her had taken its place, she kept on looking straight ahead as he continued. “But please, princess, listen to me when I tell you that the only thing that matters to me is your safety. You might not want to believe it, and I can understand that, but there is a reason that it is forbidden for the royal family to look into the well; there is a reason that you were not allowed to seek out this place.”

“But she never did anything to harm me.” the words were little more than a whisper when Zelda felt her resolve not to utter a single word to Auru ever again crumble, but she knew that he would hear her. “She understood me in a way that no one else ever had; she was not frightened by my title, and she did not try to impress me because of it—she was just there, showing me that I could be angry and happy and sad.”

“And that is what makes that well so dangerous,” Auru said, gesturing towards the wall in front of him, “there was a reason behind the separation of the worlds, there is a reason that we wanted to shield you from all of that. You can hear it yourself in the way you are talking about her, telling about her and the way she made you ignore your duties like it is something to celebrate, like it would not have been the beginning of the fall of Hyrule if we had not discovered you out here that day. Zelda,” he said her name, everything about the way he reached out towards her, lowering his voice, letting her know that, to him, it was only a matter of time before she would see reason and take his hand to let him lead her back into the castle where he would no doubt station a guard outside any room she would find herself in to keep her from being able to seek out the wall and the memories of her friend once more, “you are the sole heir to the throne of Hyrule. You cannot afford to lose sight of that, cannot allow anyone to blind you to your duty. She made you shirk your education, wasting precious time by sitting in front of the well, losing yourself to another world you do not belong to. Surely, you must be able to realise that it would have to end.”

“I would have promised never to skip another lesson, never to answer one of my tutors back,” Zelda mumbled, feeling how the tears pressed against her resolve not to show weakness, “I told you that I would do anything to keep you from taking her away from me, and you still ordered the guards to drain the well and build the wall. Why? If it was about my education, if it was about the tutors demanding more of me, then why did you not listen to me when I told you that I would never get an answer wrong ever again if you would just let me keep the well?”

“Zelda…” she could almost hear how he was about to repeat it all once again with the same know-all tone of voice he had first used to tell her that he was doing it for her own good as the guard had lifted her up and carried her back to her room while she had fought and yelled at him to let her go so she could run back to the courtyard and beg them not to ruin her only means of communication with her friend. “You and I both know that this was about something greater and far more important than just your education. It was about Hyrule. It was about the fact that people have lost themselves to the Twilight Realm for ages before you were even born and that we could not allow you to look into the well and communicate with someone who ultimately had no other goal than to cause Hyrule’s ruin.”

“You are a liar!” Zelda did not know when she moved or how she kept herself from falling over. All she knew was that one moment, she was sitting down with her back pressed against the wall, and the next, she had jumped to her feet, clenching her fist as she looked down at Auru, the world around her spinning as she tried her best to protect the memories she had of her friends from his accusations. “She would never have done that! Never! She was my friend; she talked to me when everyone else would only talk to the princess of Hyrule; she kept me company when all you could think about was whether or not I was a good enough diplomat, if I would be able to maintain peace in Hyrule, if I was strong enough to be able to lead the council; she saw me when no one else ever did, and for that, I owe her everything and nothing you say will ever be enough to make me forget her!”

“You may think that now, but, with time, I promise you that you will begin to understand why I had to act, why I could not with a clear conscience allow you to continue with your communication. Someday, you will have to accept that you are a part of something far greater than a single person, that, as the heir apparent, your life does not only belong to you. The queen of Hyrule will be a servant to her people before she is anything else. You cannot allow anything to interfere with that duty.”

“I don’t care about my duty!” only once she had uttered the words, did Zelda realise what she had just said.

Taking an uneasy step backwards, she reached up to cover her mouth with her hand, knowing that she would not be able to take back what she had just said. But as silence descended over them, Auru simply looking up at her, the disappointment apparent in his eyes as he raised a brow, wordlessly letting her know that he was waiting for her to apologise, for her to look down at the ground and tell him that she had not meant that, that she had lost her temper, that it would not happen again, Zelda found that she did not wish to do that. What was said was said, leaving her unable to retract her words, but even if she had somehow been able to catch her yell, making it unsaid, she would still not have done it. He deserved to know exactly how she felt, deserved to listen to her thoughts about that which had robbed her of her only friend.

Zelda let her hand fall, taking a deep breath as she forced her voice not to tremble when she continued. “I never asked for anyone to give me that responsibility, to make it so that I have other people planning out every moment of my day. She was my friend, and nothing you say or do will ever be able to change that. You might say that I am wrong, that she had been tricking me this entire time, that she had been talking with me for months without asking me questions about Hyrule and its defences even once because she thought that she would be able to seize power through me, but I will never believe you. You say that it is my duty to leave her behind and forget about her, but if that is so, I tell you that I don’t care about that duty.”

For a moment, it was so silent that Zelda would not have doubted that she would have been able to hear it if a butterfly had fluttered on the other side of the castle. She stood there, still staring down at Auru, neither of them moving a centimetre as they looked at each other, both waiting for the other to give in and avert their gaze.

In the end, Auru was the first to give up. There was a sense of malicious glee Zelda had not known that she was capable of feeling to be found in the way he sighed as he pushed himself off the ground, attempting to pat just a little of the dust off his tunic as he looked at her, the way he shook his head slightly making it clear that he was at a loss, unable to figure out how to proceed from there. “Princess, I know that you are angry, but that is not behaviour fitting for someone in your position.”

“I don’t care.” Zelda crossed her arms. “What can you do? You took away my only friend, ignoring the fact that I offered to become the perfect princess if it would make you allow me to continue to see her, so there is nothing you can do now.”

“I can tell your father.” Auru lifted an eyebrow. “He worries about you and the way you keep on insisting to have your meals brought up to your room. I am sure that he would not be happy to hear that you have gone out here again, which I have to inform him about, should you choose to remain out here. But,” he added, making his voice a little lighter, a little more inviting, as he all but held out his hand for Zelda to take, offering her a way back to her old life and the days of her nurse waking her in the morning, a tutor sighing every time she got something wrong, people correcting her posture and gesturing towards the fork the furthest away from the plate when all she wanted to do was to pick up the one that felt comfortable, “if you just come with me now, I am sure that the two of us will be able to make up a story to tell him instead. What do you say? Should we tell your father that we had to leave the castle for a couple of hours to give you the chance to study the geography of Hyrule?”

She hated to admit it, but for a fraction of a second, just for the duration of a heartbeat, Zelda considered his offer, thought about what would happen if she nodded, if she buried the anger that burnt in her chest somewhere deep within her mind where she would never be able to access it again and smiled up at Auru as he would look at the king and tell him that they had just returned from their little trip and that he was terribly sorry that he had forgot to inform a servant of where they were going, but that the princess had just been so happy to get the chance to study out in the open that they had forgot about everything but their lesson. It would be so easy, just to smile at him and let him tell her about the lesson she had missed, chuckling as he would retell her everything the tutor had no doubt said when it was discovered that the princess had not shown up to his class and was not merely a couple of seconds behind schedule.

But she did not. Rather, Zelda planted herself solidly on the ground, muttering a short prayer to the goddesses, asking them to give her the strength of the tree that had been removed, as she met Auru’s gaze once more. “No,” she said, “no, I will not go back to the castle with you.”

Auru sighed, halfway sounding like he had already known that that would be her response. “Princess, please, be logical, we are all just trying to—”

“I am being perfectly logical, Auru,” Zelda replied, casting a quick glance at the wall behind him as she spoke. If she focused, she could almost imagine the way her friend would have smiled at her if she had only been able to hear her, how she would have used her sleeve to muffle a snicker before telling her that she was proud of her, that it was a good thing that Zelda had finally decided to say no, “you took my only friend away from me. I begged you not to, and you still did it. So, no, I will not go back to the castle with you, nor will I attend my lesson. Now, if you would please leave me, I would prefer to be alone with my thoughts for a bit.”

There was an almost imperceptible change to the air around her. Had it not been for the way Zelda had spent hours out there already, trying to explain to her friend what the birds around her sounded like, how the grass would wave in the wind, the breeze making the trees rustle lightly, she might not even have noticed it at all. But she had. Zelda had spent every moment she was able to steal for herself out there, and she felt the way things changed as strongly as if she had been able to see it.

Perhaps that was why it did not surprise her when Auru shook his head, the resignation written across his face as he looked down at her. “I had hoped that you would see reason. Very well then. Zelda, I know that you must hate me right now, but I promise you that I will try my best to keep this from your father for as long as I can, though I have a feeling that that will not be able to last for long if you remain out here.” he began to walk, passing her before pausing. Zelda saw the way his shoulders rose up, saw how he was thinking about turning around to try to convince her to come with him one last time. But the moment passed without a word being uttered, and the next, Auru was on his way back to the castle, leaving her behind with her memories of her friend and a wall she could not get past.

Finding her way back to her spot against the wall, Zelda curled up on the ground, shivering in the cold air. She had thought that she would cry when Auru left and there was no reason for her to try to fight against the tears anymore, but even as she waited for the tears to come, her eyes remained dry. Dry and swollen. She must have used up all of her tears already.

Placing her hand on the wall, Zelda looked up, up at where clouds were rushing past her. Her tutor had told her how it was nothing but the distance that made it look like they were small pieces of cotton that moved over the sky at a rate so slow that it felt like she would be able to walk faster than them, that, really, they were larger than anything she could imagine and moved by so quickly that she would not have been able to outrace them even if she had the best horse in the kingdom. The wall was cold beneath her fingertips. Zelda could not help but wonder if she might be wrong about the wall as well, if it might turn out to be as massive as the clouds were slow, the barrier that separated her from her friend as permanent as the clouds were small. More than anything, Zelda hoped that it would turn out to be the case, that she had been wrong when she had let herself believe that Auru had truly been able to order her only connection with her friend to be severed.

The sun slowly made its way across the sky, descending behind the horizon and bathing her in a golden light. Idly wondering if her friend was also looking at the sunset, if she was wondering where she was, if she worried about her, Zelda closed her eyes. It was only for a moment. Besides, she knew that she was already in so much trouble that spending another couple of minutes outside would not change anything.

What had her friend wanted to show her that day? As much as Zelda wished to know it, as much as she could not ignore the hope that her friend might also have found that the answer to her own question was not a material thing, the knowledge that she would never get to know for certain what it would have been was enough to extinguish any bit of happiness she might otherwise have been able to find in the memory of how her eyes had sparkled when she had told Zelda about her plan.

She opened her eyes again, finding herself momentarily blinded by the glow of the setting sun. And then, so faintly that it only took a moment before Zelda was unable to know if it had really happened or if she had only been imagining it, she saw her friend standing in front of her. Hand outstretched, a smile tugging at her lips, she looked down at her.

“Wait,” Zelda mumbled, pushing against the wall behind her to get up from the ground. Somehow, she knew that she had mere moments before her friend would disappear again, leaving her behind, “wait for me!”

But her friend did not seem to hear her. As sadness crept into her expression, she turned from her, taking a step into the setting sun.

Zelda heard herself scream again, grabbing for her hand and finding nothing but air. A step forwards and she felt how the tip of her shoe caught on a stone, sending her towards the ground.

It hurt, a faint feeling of pain letting her know that she had scraped her knees, but that was not the reason why she did not try to rise again. From down there, she could just barely see how her friend disappeared for a second time, leaving her behind.

As the sun hid itself behind the horizon, there was no reason for her to try to get up again, and so, Zelda simply crawled back towards the wall, curling up next to it and trying to ignore how she shivered with cold.

Only later, just as she felt herself slip into sleep, did Zelda realise that she had missed what might very well turn out to have been her last chance of asking her friend about her name. Closing he eyes, she felt how the tears returned, but she was too tired to even try to think about keeping them hidden. No matter what, there was no one out there who would notice her crying.

+++

The next time Zelda opened her eyes, it was to find herself tucked in beneath what felt like a mountain of soft, white blankets, a cloud having been created above her to keep her from rising from her bed. Pushing the blankets away as much as she could, Zelda caught a glimpse of her room and the shadows that seemed to decorate every corner. Through the doors to her balcony, she thought that she could see the moon casting its pale light over the world outside.

So Auru had told her father about her whereabouts after all. Zelda was not sure whether to regard it as a betrayal or not. As she lay there, looking at the last moments of the hour of twilight, the only thing Zelda felt was the loss of a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this! As always, you are more than welcome to yell about Midzel if you want to :)


End file.
